Clara shook her head and dropped her eyes.
“My mother was a cleaning lady,” said Reine-Marie, rightly interpreting how Clara was feeling. “She grew close to the families she worked for, while she worked for them. But then she lost track of them. I’m sure many died and she had no idea.”
Clara nodded, grateful to her for pointing out that it went both ways.
“Do you think if the Baroness Baumgartner wrote to Justin—” Gabri began.
“Non.”
“What was she like?” Armand asked.
“A strong personality,” said Olivier. “Liked her own voice. Used to talk about her kids.”
“Two boys and a girl,” said Gabri. “The most wonderful children on earth. Handsome, beautiful. Smart and kind. Like their mother, she used to say, then laugh.”
“And we were always expected to say, ‘Don’t laugh, it’s true,’” said Olivier.
“And did you?” asked Reine-Marie.
“If we wanted our house cleaned, we did,” said Gabri.
As they described the Baroness’s personality, Clara could see her. Almost always with a smile. Sometimes warm and kind. Often with a touch of cunning. But never malicious.
A woman who was less like a baroness would be hard to find.
And yet Clara also remembered the Baroness really leaning into the mop or brush. Working hard.
There was a nobility in that.
Clara wondered why it had never occurred to her to paint the Baroness. Her small, bright eyes, at once kind and needy. Cunning, but also thoughtful. Her worn hands and face.
It was a remarkable face, filled with generosity and bile. Kindness and judgment.
“Why’re you asking?” asked Gabri. “Does it matter?”
“Not really,” said Armand. “It’s just that the provisions of her will are a little odd.”
“Oooh, odd,” said Gabri. “I like that.”
“You like queer,” said Ruth. “You hate odd.”
“That is true,” he admitted. “So what was odd about the will?”
“The money,” said Benedict.
“Money?” asked Olivier, leaning forward.
Lucien told them about the bequests.
Olivier’s expressive face went from dumbfounded to amused and back to dumbfounded.
“Fifteen million? Dollars?” He looked at Gabri, who was also gaping. “We should’ve kept in touch.”
“Oui,” said Lucien, pleased with the reaction. “And a home in Switzerland.”
“And one in Vienna,” said Myrna.
“She was always a little loopy,” said Gabri, “but she must’ve gone right around the bend.”
“No. My father would never have allowed her to sign the will if he thought she wasn’t clearheaded.”
“Oh come on,” said Ruth. “Even I can see it’s madness. And not just the money, but choosing three people she didn’t even know to be her liquidators? Why not one of us?”
Armand looked at Gabri, Olivier, Ruth, and Clara.
They’d known her. And hadn’t known her.
They knew the Baroness. Not Bertha Baumgartner.
Is that why?
He and Myrna had no preconceptions. They saw her as a woman, not a cleaning woman, and certainly not a baroness.
But why would that matter?
Maybe it was their skill set. He was a cop, an investigator. Myrna was a psychologist. She could read people. They both could. But again, why would that matter to Madame Baumgartner in the execution of her will?
And how did she even know about them, when they didn’t know her?
And what about…? Armand turned to Benedict. How do you begin to explain him as liquidator?
“Who were the witnesses?” he asked, sitting forward again.
“Neighbors,” said Lucien. “Though they wouldn’t have seen the contents of the will.”
Armand looked at his watch. It was coming on for eight thirty in the morning. The power hadn’t yet been restored, but the tiny village of Three Pines was often among the last to be remembered by Hydro-Québec.
“You need to go?” asked Reine-Marie, remembering their conversation of the evening before.
“I’m afraid so.”
“What about us?” asked Lucien.
“I’ll drive you back to the farmhouse. We can dig your cars out together.”
“The heirs need to be contacted,” said Lucien. “I’ll try to set something up for this afternoon. No use waiting.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Benedict.
Armand nodded. “Just let me know when and where.”
“The Guilt of an old inheritance,” he thought as he walked toward his car, his boots squealing on the hard-packed snow.
Is that what was in the crumbling farmhouse? Guilt, and sins that were there from birth?
CHAPTER 10
“Come in, come in,” said the neighbor, gesturing. “Get out of the cold.”
She was young, in her mid-thirties, Gamache guessed. Only slightly older than his own daughter, Annie. And she probably shouldn’t be letting complete strangers into her home.
But by the way she’d looked at him when she’d answered his knock, Gamache suspected he wasn’t a complete stranger. And that was confirmed a moment later when he took off his gloves and offered his hand as they crowded into her vestibule.
“Désolé,” he said. “Sorry to disturb you, especially on a day like this. My name is Armand Gamache. I live down the road, in Three Pines.”
“Yes, I know who you are. I’m Patricia Houle.”
She took his hand, then turned to Myrna. “I know you too. You run the bookstore.”
“I do. You’ve been in quite a few times. Nonfiction. Gardening books. But also biography.”
“That’s me.”
Lucien introduced himself, and then she turned to Benedict.
“Benedict Pouliot,” he said. “Builder.”
“Come in, get warm.”
They followed her into the heart of the home, the kitchen, where a large woodstove was throbbing out heat.
As with her home, there was nothing pretentious about Madame Houle. She seemed to be someone without need to impress, who, because of that, was impressive. Like her strong, simple home.
“I have a pot of tea on. Would you like a cup?”
“Not for me, thank you,” said Myrna. The others also declined.
“We won’t take much of your time,” said Armand. “We just have a couple of questions.”
“Oui?” asked Patricia.
“Did you know the woman who lived next door?” Myrna asked.
“The Baroness? Oh yes, though not well. Why?”
She’d noticed her visitors exchanging glances but could not have known the significance of what she’d just said. Patricia Houle had just confirmed that Ruth was right. Bertha Baumgartner was the Baroness.
“Nothing,” said Myrna. “Go on.”
“Was it that I called her the Baroness?” asked Patricia, looking from one to the other. “It wasn’t our nickname for her. Believe me, we wouldn’t have chosen that one. She called herself that.”
“How long have you known her?” Lucien asked.
“A few years. Is everything all right?” She looked at Armand. “You’re not here officially, are you?”
“Not in the way you think,” he said. “We’re liquidators of her estate.”
“She died?”
“Yes, just before Christmas,” said Lucien.
“I hadn’t heard,” said Patricia. “I know she moved into a nursing home a couple of years ago, but I didn’t know she’d passed away. I’m sorry. I’d have gone to the funeral.”
“You witnessed her will?” asked Armand. When she nodded, he went on. “Did she strike you as competent?”
“Oh yes,” said Patricia. “She was all there. She was a little odd, granted. She did insist on being called Baroness, but we all have our eccentricities.”
“I bet I can guess yours,” said Myrna.
“I bet you can,” said Patricia.
“You like poisonous plants. Probably have a bed dedicated to them.”
“I do,” Patricia admitted with a laugh.
“How did you know that?” Benedict asked.
“The books she bought,” said Myrna. “The Poison Garden was one, as I remember. Another was…” Myrna strained her memory.